Popcorn is a highly popular snack food item. In the past, the at-home preparation of popcorn by the consumer involved adding kernel popcorn plus a cooking oil to a covered pot and heating until the popcorn kernels popped to make popcorn. As used herein, "kernel popcorn" refers to unpopped popcorn. The noun "popcorn" or synonymously "popped popcorn" refers herein to popped kernel popcorn. The adjective "popcorn" can refer to either. Once popped, the popcorn can be flavored such as by the topical addition of melted butter and/or salt.
More recently, microwave popcorn products have become extremely popular. At present, in the U.S., over 70 different brands of microwave popcorn products are available. In general, the more popular microwave popcorn products comprise an expandable paper bag containing a charge of kernel popcorn, fat and salt. The microwave popcorn article is adapted to be heated in a microwave oven for three to five minutes to produce the popped popcorn. More recently, improved microwave popcorn articles have been fabricated employing a metallized susceptor which facilitates the heating of the popcorn-fat charge and which, in turn, leads desirably to increases in popcorn volume and decreases in unpopped kernels. Microwave popcorn articles of this type are described in detail in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,180 (issued May 22, 1984 to J. D. Watkins entitled "Package for Increasing the Volumetric Yield of Microwave Cooked Popcorn" and incorporated herein by reference).
While extremely convenient and popular, microwave popcorn articles are not without certain disadvantages. In particular, due to their use as an occasional snack food, microwave popcorn products must be prepared to have an extended shelf life. Since butter and butter containing food products typically require refrigerated distribution and storage, conventional microwave popcorn products are prepared having a shelf stable non dairy fat constituent that is often flavored with an artificial butter flavor.
In the past, microwave popcorn products containing conventional butter have been known under the Act I brand by Golden Valley Microwave Popcorn. However, the butter containing microwave popcorn product required distribution through refrigerated or frozen channels. Due to the inconvenience of required refrigeration distribution, sale and consumer storage, such products never proved to be popular.
It would be desirable to be able to provide a microwave popcorn product containing at least a portion of its fat constituent provided by a real butter ingredient.
It would be further desirable to be able to provide a microwave popcorn product containing a minor but significant portion of its fat constituent provided by a real butter ingredient that did not require refrigeration.
Microwave popcorn articles are also known that contain conventional butter that do not require refrigeration. It is believed that such products can be made due to the extremely low concentration of the real butter. In such products, the butter content is less than 1% and typically about 0.1%.
Given the state of the art as described, there is a continuing need for new and improved microwave popcorn articles containing at least a portion of its fat constituent provided by a real butter ingredient. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved microwave popcorn articles.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide microwave popcorn articles including embodiments having a reduced fat charge, which upon microwave heating can provide popcorn containing at least a portion of its fat constituent provided by a real butter ingredient that nonetheless exhibits extended shelf stability.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide methods by which such microwave popcorn products can be prepared.
It has been surprisingly discovered that the above objectives can be realized and that improved microwave popcorn articles can be provided. The present invention resides in part in the surprising discovery that by incorporation of minor but significant amounts of a high fat butter ingredient, together with a conventional levels of antioxidants in the non dairy fat ingredient, that shelf stable butter ingredient containing microwave popcorn products can be realized. Furthermore, by adding the ingredients in a particular order, embodiments can be prepared that are unexpectedly superior in shelf stability compared to compositionally similar products prepared by alternate methods.